Friday, September 22, 2006

Today's Birthdays

Ken Aspromonte LAA b. 1931, played 1961. Not particularly compelling as a ballplayer (he was a solid player in the PCL but couldn't reliably cut it in the Show), the utility infielder had a three-year managerial stint with Cleveland, in which capacity he was eventually replaced by Frank Robinson.

Doug Camilli LAN b. 1936, played 1960-1964. Son of two-time All Star Dolph, understudy for Johnny Roseboro, had he worked for the Dodgers just three more years, from 1959 through 1966, he would have played through the greatest string of dominance the franchise has ever known, and he would have collected two more World Series rings besides. Replaced by Jeff Torborg in 1965, he spent the final years of his career with the Senators.

Jim
Fairey LAN b. 1944, played 1968, 1973.I
Am Not Spock, Leonard Nimoy wrote long after Star Trek
went off the air; typecast as the emotionless Vulcan, his career
stagnated (though some say it was also due to mismanagement). Fairey's
typecasting started when he hit a pinch-hit homer early in his career
and became a bat off the bench for the Dodgers, and later, the Expos
following the 1968 expansion draft. He came up with and finished his
career with the Dodgers. Of course, by the time of his final season in
1973, there was this fellow on the Dodgers' roster named Manny
Mota, and that was that.

Lou
Johnson CAL,LAN,LAA b. 1934, played 1961, 1965-1967, 1969.
Since my memory of baseball is absent the 1980's and a great deal of
history outside of the Dodgers, I'll use a simile that may rankle
some: "Sweet Lou" Johnson was the Dodgers' answer to Scott
Spiezio for the 2002 Angels, say, or Aaron
Boone for the 2003 Yankees: an otherwise unremarkable player who
hit a memorable home run in the postseason. In Johnson's case, it was
a solo shot in the clinching
game 7 of the 1965 World Series, incredibly, played at
Metropolitan Stadium.

Tommy
Lasorda BRO b. 1927, played 1954-1955, Hall of Fame: 1997
(Veterans). Comically bad as a pitcher, the rise of Sandy
Koufax pushed him off the roster; he never left the high minors afterwards,
and ended up in a PCL Angels uniform, preceding the
Dodgers to Los Angeles. As a manager, he was an ambitious,
self-promoting cheerleader who worked the press brilliantly, making
"bleed Dodger blue" a catchphrase. He was
the right man to replace Walter Alston and knew it; having managed
the phenominal wave of talent coming up through the Dodgers' farm
system in the early 70's, he was in an ideal position to take over the
team's helm when, in 1973, he was named third base coach.

Near the end of the 1976 season, the team made it clear to Walter
Alston that his services would no longer be needed. At a September 27
press conference, Peter O'Malley announced that "Walter told me he
wanted to retire", although Glenn Stout recorded that Alston "looked
tired and sounded bitter and resigned"; two days later, Lasorda took
over. He held the team's reins through nineteen full seasons and
parts of two others (the two remaining games in 1976, and the first
half, more or less, of 1996), two World Series titles, five division
victories, two Manager of the Year awards, and a career .526 winning
percentage. He became the first rookie manager to take his teams to
the World Series in his first two years at the helm in 1977 and 1978.
His masterpiece, by far, was the 1988 championship team, which
featured an all-pitching, no hitting lineup, save for Kirk Gibson --
who wasn't able to participate in the World Series, save for one famous
at-bat and home run.

Two years after his resignation as manager following a midseason heart
attack in 1996, he was briefly the GM in the interregnum between the
firing of Fred Claire in 1998 and the start of the forgettable Kevin
Malone era, from June 22 through September 11. Nothing
in his resume qualified him for that position; indeed,
he had a significant role in encouraging the disastrous
Pedro
Martinez for Delino
DeShields trade. His inexperience bordering on rank incompetence
showed almost immediately, as the Dodgers traded Paul
Konerko and Dennys
Reyes for closer Jeff
Shaw. Under the Basic Agreement then in force, Shaw had a right
to demand a trade at the end of the season; Kevin Malone compounded
the error by retaining him with a steep pay raise, giving the aging
All Star closer a $16.5M contract with three-year extension. Shaw had
a very good 1999, but the mediocrity he displayed in the last two
years of his career made the deal a bust for the Dodgers. Meantime,
Konerko had gone on to be a star with the White Sox at a time when
Eric
Karros's production had started to wind down.

Jeffrey
Leonard LAN b. 1955, played 1977, All-Star: 1987, 1989. An
All-Star with the Giants and Mariners, for the Dodgers he was a PTBNL
when the team reacquired Joe
Ferguson. All things considered, the "Hac-Man" — so called
for his hacktastic approach at the plate — had a pretty good career as an
outfielder over 14 seasons and five clubs, the highlight of which was
hitting four home runs in each of the first four games of the 1987
NLCS; he was named NLCS MVP despite the Giants series loss, one of
only three players to be so honored in postseason history.

Favorite Lasorda memory: In Philadelphia, when the Phanatic was beating up on a life size doll dressed up in a Dodger uniform between innings. Lasorda raced out of the dugout and ripped the doll from the Phanatic and took it back in the dugout. I'm from Philly, and not really a Philles fan, but wow, talk about really bleeding Dodger Blue. I thought that was great!!!!